What is
SeWeR?
SeWeR is an acronym, stands for SEquence analysis using WEb Resources.
In addition to its common *dirty* use, the word SeWeR also has two meanings-
first, "a medieval servant or household officer of high rank in
charge of serving dishes at the table and sometimes of seating and tasting"
and the second one, "one who sews".SeWeR fits all
of these definitions. First, it is *dirty* at the code level. Second,
it serves. It serves you a single door to all the common web-based
services for sequence analysis. And it sews. It sews all these services
together. For a refined mind, SeWeR is an integrated portal to common
web-based services in bioinformatics.
Who
can use SeWeR?
SeWeR is cross-browser DHTML. It is written entirely in JavaScript1.2.
Hence it will run only in Netscape 4.0 or higher and Internet Explorer
4.0 or higher. I have taken all the precautions so that it runs on all
the platforms in these two browsers. But DHTML is still in its infancy and
implementation by browser vendors are at its best rudimentary and are full
of bugs. If you find one please let me know. Other browser users are on
their own.
Why
SeWeR?
SeWeR is object-oriented. It is designed in such a manner that it can be
updated and customized very easily. Sometimes, customizing a web-based service
is as easy as saving a page. SeWeR is primarily designed to be hosted in
Intranet and to run as a stand-alone application in your browser. It
doesn't require any server to host itself. The goal of SeWeR is to
turn your web-browser into a powerful sequence-analysis tool.
The
future of SeWeR?
I have lot of plans
for it. But like everything the future of SeWeR is uncertain and like
everything it depends on you...
Publication Basu M K (2001) SeWeR: a customizable and integrated dynamic
HTML interface to bioinformatics services. Bioinformatics.
17(6): 577-578.
Downloading/Mirroring Information SeWeR is feather-light! The whole package is just around
300K. You can even run it from a floppy. Download
the zip archive from IUBIO. Alternatively, you can download the archive from here. Unzip it and run "sewer.htm" in your browser. You have to use a program that maintains the directory-structure
while unzipping. If you are planning to run SeWeR from a website
then maintain the directory structure and use "sewer.htm"
as start page which you can rename though, to any name of your choice.
Present Mirrors
The mirror list of SeWeR is getting so big that I had to make a
separate page for it. You can find the mirror list here.
Why SeWeR is not compatible with Netscape 6?
Netscape 6 has a bug that causes data loss while submitting hidden form. The structure of SeWeR is based on handling hidden form and therefore SeWeR at present is not compatible at all with Netscape 6. Use Netscape 7 or Firefox instead.
SeWeR now generates graphics. Savvy
is a plasmid drawing software that generates plasmid map in the revolutionary
Scalable Vector Graphics format from W3C.
What's New in
SeWeR?
SeWeR is now version 3.0. This is the first DOM compatible version of SeWeR. I almost completely rewrote the JavaScript engine. SeWeR now runs in almost all the major browsers.
All the program links have been fixed. Please see the release note for details.
SeWeR can be downloaded and mirrored freely.
If you have mirrored SeWeR, then let me know, so that I can put a link here.
If you would like to have a service to be included in SeWeR, drop me a line.
I'll try to include it in future version. And of course if you've liked
SeWeR, or have disliked it, don't forget to talk about it.
